There my dear friend — if there is not rhyme enough for you God forgive your insatiable avarice; it is now seven o clock on Sunday
night. October 20th 1793. I left Brixton on Tuesday morning last — peregrinated till Wednesday
night — played a rubber on Thursday — read Sir Launcelot Greaves [11] — playd again on Friday —
reachd Bristol on Saturday — & during this interval have I written to your brother & all this rhyme to your Doctorial dignity —
in the mean time neither you nor Grosvenor have laid pen to paper.
this letter has no curious incident to fill it such as Snivels cough or the wasps nest — had I been here during the riots you should
have had a very tragical account & perhaps would have been favoured at the assizes with the last dying speech & confession
birth parentage & education of the notorious RS who was hung for being engaged in the riots. [12] but my hour not being yet arrived I was peacefully employd at Brixton & scaped hanging for the present. peace is at last restored — we are still however
well watchd by the military — the horse parade in martial array & we have all the appearance of war. Bristol has indeed experienced
some of the miseries of war — when the soldiers fird — so ill were their pieces directed — that only two who fell were rioters — the
remainder were spectators & one a woman. our walls are white with denunciations of vengeance — no murders no blood hounds — Damn Ld
Bateman [13] — & — Daunbeny [14] dies — are written
upon every watch box & corner . it is melancholy to reflect that all these lives are lost thro the imprudence of the commissioners
in taking off the toll & then imposing it again. the people have however carried their point — but should they attempt to punish
the rioters in gaol I think consequences still more serious will ensue. so much of the riots. my journey was little productive of
incident — I am not made for solitude & the road which in company would have appeard short — soon fatigued me. my pilgrimage to
Dunnington was pleasant. I walkd twenty miles only breaking my fast with one small biscuit & some blackberries & without
resting — then threw myself on the bank & contemplated the walls where Chaucer [15] wore out the
evening of his days — I lookd for his oak but it existed not — the traces of foundations are still visible — the whole fabric indeed
sufferd more from the the civil war than from Time. you may easily imagine with what vehemence I devourd my dinner at Newbury. by the
by mine was like to be a painful pilgrimage for I felt something not unlike a pea in my shoe — upon examination one of the wooden pegs
was perforating the small part of my foot — the Sans Culottes removed the obstruction.

my eyes smart much but I am unwilling to leave off so very near the end — you will write soon I hope & send the
plan of the 8th book — I wait for my baggage to begin — in the mean time I have plenty of employment. the history of the theatre — Shad & Southey managers you do not yet know — perhaps my next may give you the
account — Peroonte Sir Bertrand [16] &c
&c. we shall kill a few rats by that time & perhaps other incidents may occur to make a good letter — this must however be
deserved by you. the prospect of my toasted cheese at nine keeps my eyes open. tell your brother he must write soon & make my respects to all your good family

[13] John Bateman, 2nd Viscount Bateman (d. 1802), politician. He was commander of the
Hertfordshire Militia, which was based in Bristol at the time of the Bridge Riot. His troops fired on the crowd, resulting in the
deaths of 11 civilians. BACK

[14] George Daubeny (dates unknown), a Bristol
Alderman who, in September 1793, read the Riot Act to the assembled crowd during the Bristol Bridge Riot. BACK

[15] Geoffrey
Chaucer (c. 1340–1400; DNB), poet and administrator. Dunnington Castle, near Newbury,
was reputed to have once belonged to the Chaucer family. An oak in the park was known as ‘Chaucer’s Oak’. BACK

[16] ‘On the Pleasure Derived From Objects of Terror; with Sir
Bertrand, a Fragment’ in John Aikin (1747–1822; DNB) and Anna Letitia Aikin (1743–1825; DNB), Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose and Verse (London, 1773), pp. 117–137. BACK